FOR ALL MANKIND (54)

I'm not one to usually just talk about the movies I'm watching in this mammoth quest. Hell, I've got so much shit spewing around in this pea-sized brain of mine that I need some sort of outlet to let it loose on a semi-attentive audience. But today my usual cavalcade of useless information about myself has been halted, strangely enough, by a documentary about astronauts:


"...They brought back thousands of feet of amazing film, perhaps the most extraordinary footage ever shot by human beings."

- Al Reinert

I'm sitting in a coffee shop, after having just finished the last forty minutes of For All Mankind (54) just beaming like a school child. I found myself, in these final spectacular moments of this film, actually reaching across to my actually busy roommate and drawing his attention to some part of the screen, as I couldn't bear to experience the majesty of this film on my own. Invariably, I'd be so excited for what came next I'd zone out in the middle of sharing, turn the screen back to me, simply unable to miss another second.

For All Mankind (54) might be my favorite Criterion Film I've watched so far. For those of you who've no interest in space, or the Apollo missions, or at least documentation of an era long gone, I implore you: see this movie. Documentarian Al Reinert has culled together nearly every piece of film ever shot of these amazing events and with the help of to-this-point unknown editor Susan Korda, created an all-encompassing look at the sheer awesomness of these epic moments i our countries history. I said this yesterday, but the imagery presented here is not just your standard Neil Armstrong posing with the flag, or the Earth from outer space - sure, those are present, but these are views of the moon and the men who've walked it that I'm positive you've never seen before. Reinert's images capture a sense of enjoyment and childish awe that in hindsight completely jives with what these men were actually accomplishing. There's several moments - Buzz Aldrin smearing ham on a floating sandwich, a reel of "moon bloopers", and many of the hilarious sound clips - that make you realize that this event was as mind-blowing and awe-inspiring to these hardened pilots as it was to the world that looked on.

What really makes this film for me though is the way that Reinert splices in audio from the extensive interviews he's done with these famed astronauts. It isn't the talking head sort of hodge-podge you're used to in documentaries, instead Reinert, smartly, chooses to layer the memories, insights and observations of these men over these impressive clips. The effect is one of actually existing for a moment within these moon explorer's memories, actually being a part of the emotions and experience they must have been feeling. It absolutely sucked the breath out of me.

Do your self a favor, find this film and watch it. If you're disappointed ... well, you should ask your mom and dad if they dropped you as a child.

Tomorrow: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (55)

My stupidity continues and FOR ALL MANKIND (54)

Hah, being dumb, as I can say from experience, is a difficult thing. Not only are you burdened with the constant embarrassment of acting like a complete and total moron (you know hitting on your friend's mom, drinking motor oil, falling through someone's roof, etc.) but you are at most times completely unaware of your stupidity. You just blunder through life beer bonging gallons of milk without nary a clue that you've entered in to The Stupid Zone.

For the last week or so, I've been receiving comments from concerned friends about the "title" of my blog. Being addled in the grey matter, I just assumed my occasionally over-zealous readers were commenting on the title of an individual post. You know instead of writing "Fighting monsters and Sanjuro (53)" I'd written "Fighting monsters and Sanjesus (53)" or something of the like. The comments continued though and finally I looked in to what these loyal readers had been discussing.

Turns out for the last 53 posts the actual title of my blog had an error in it. Instead of "Criterion Quest: my lifelong quest to watch every Criterion film ever made", it read "Criterion Quest: my lifelong quest to watch every Criterion film every made." Yup, I've been living in the shadow of stupidity for the last three months and only now can I shake my head at myself. Just realizing this, plagues me with insecurities about what other tiny errors are riddling the last fifty-three posts. Well, at least it riddles me with insecurities momentarily until I forget what I was talking about or writing about and I blithely stumble in to the next great disaster of my life.

You know how you're pretty sure you've seen each and every film clip of the Apollo missions? You've seen the rocket fire, you've seen the Earth spinning lazily from space, you've seen sweet Mother Moon floatin' like a big old hunk a cheese in the sky - you really feel like you've seen them all. Turns out, you, and I, have been completely wrong as Al Reinert, a director-journalist from the 1960s, compiled seemingly the greatest collection of clips about the Apollo missions you've never seen in to a film entitled For All Mankind (54). I'm only halfway through this film right now, but as someone who dedicated four months of my life in high school to scouring books and films for clips of Apollo missions, almost all of these jump out as completely new ... and absolutely brilliant. There is an image of an astronaut playfully releasing his rope and floating out and above the spaceship whic colored the idea of the space missions with a kind of, well, fun that I've never known before. Toss in the actual quotes and spoken pieces about the Apollo missions by those who actually lived through them and this is a truly amazing piece of filmmaking. I, exhausted from lack of sleep, managed to power through forty-five minutes of it last night, regardless of my near comatose state.

It's good to be back.

Tomorrow: For All Mankind (54)